NEW DELHI: Fugitive gangster Ravi Gangwal has been arrested by Delhi Police’s Special Cell after a six-month chase across five states.
The 33-year-old gangster was carrying a reward of Rs 50,000 on him in a case under MCOCA and was on the list of top 10 wanted gangsters of Delhi.
Gangwal had managed to give Delhi cops a slip on multiple occasions since 2018.
However, the Special Cell had been hot on his trail since last December and managed to arrest him from Jaipur three days ago.
When a team led by ACPs Lalit Mohan Negi and Hriday Bhushan began tracking Gangwal last year, they had just one lead — a blue-colour Baleno car that he had been using.
Raids were conducted in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Uttarakhand.
As the cops mounted surveillance to track the Baleno with a Delhi registration, they found that it had been challaned by Rajasthan Traffic Police near Jaipur.
A team rushed to Jaipur in February.
Meanwhile, an informer tipped off Negi that Gangwal’s wife was pregnant and due for delivery soon.
In May, police got a confirmation that she had delivered in April.
The cell scanned through municipal records of Jaipur, Faridabad and Delhi, and found that the delivery had taken place in a hospital at Jaipur’s Vaishali Nagar.
“The team made an extensive search and finally traced his Baleno after keeping a watch for weeks.
A trap was laid and the accused was arrested around 11.30am on June 8 when he came to buy some household articles at a nearby market.
He has been brought to Delhi,” said DCP Pramod Kushwaha.
Gangwal, from south Delhi’s Ambedkar Nagar, is accused in dozens of cases of murder, extortion, robbery and carjacking.
In 2014, Gangwal and his aides had killed the sister of their rival, Ashu, while firing indiscriminately.
In 2015, they killed Ashu in Tihar Jail using an improvised sharp weapon.
In retaliation, Ashu’s henchman, Deepak Pandit, shot dead Gangwal’s aide, Ramakant.
Gangwal, meanwhile, ran an organised gang in south Delhi with focus on settling property disputes, landgrabbing, extortion, satta and drug rackets, apart from managing the cable network in the area.
He had gone underground since he was booked under MCOCA in 2018.
Last August, Gangwal sent his shooter, Anil, to kill his rival, Prince Teotia, but the cell averted the shootout in the nick of time and caught Anil.
A few months ago, Gabgwal’s henchman, Shahrukh, parted ways with him due to monetary differences and then gunned down one Kunal in Madangir on March 30 as a show of might.
Gangwal ordered a retaliatory attack from Jaipur.
His men caught hold of Shahrukh’s man Friday, Suraj Madrasi, and bludgeoned him with a hammer.